On 4/17/15 6:45 PM, isabella parakiss wrote:
> This seems the way to go, but I'm not sure I understand why:
>
> $ declare -A arr=([a]=b)
> $ [[ -v arr['$var'] ]]; echo $?
> 1
> $ declare -A arr=(['*']=x)
> $ [[ -v arr['$var'] ]]; echo $?
> 0
>
>
> What's happening?
Well, as I said before, `*' is special: it expands to all elements of the
array, in the same way as $*. So you have to protect it through all
word expansions.
First, each word in the conditional expression is expanded as described in
the manual page
"tilde expansion, parameter and
variable expansion, arithmetic expansion, command substitution,
process substitution, and quote removal are performed."
That leaves the word as 'arr[$var]' (without the quotes, of course). The
subscript in an associative array reference also undergoes expansions, the
same ones as the rhs of an assignment statement (pretty much the same as
above). That expands the $var, leaving arr[*]. Since the check for `*' or
`@' as a subscript happens before expansion, the shell looks for the `*'
as an element of the array.
In the first case, it doesn't find it; in the second, it does.
Chet
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU c...@case.edu http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/
